Warhammer 40k Space Marine Bolter Conversion

Welcome back to Battleground Hobbies!

Today we are going to look at a simple yet effective conversion for space marines and other races in the Warhammer 40k realm. First thing you need is some1/8 inch plastic tube. You can try 5/32 too but we liked the 1/8 for space marine bolters. Other races may require larger diameter tubing, it depends on the size of the weapon at hand.

We picked up item 224 from Evergreen Scale Models. They came 5 to a pack and are 14 inches long, so you can do a great number of marines.

Experiment with the length, we recommend anywhere from 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch for normal bolters. We simple shaved the bolter barrel down until it would insert it into the tubing.glue it in place as seen here.





Here you can see the painted conversion. We were going for a crack night ops special forces chapter. They get in, get the job done and get out before anybody knows they were there! The barrel length is 5/16"

Here you can see the extra long barrel for the "sniper" in the unit. This barrel length is 1/2" an inch long.







Other simple yet easy model modifications are simply using a pin drill to hollow out the gun barrels. It adds a bit of realism to the model if it looks like a projectile will actually come out of the gun.

I know, how real is a space pirate ork anyway.


And as long as we are on 40k orks and gun conversions, another easy one is to attach a chainsword to the bottom of any blaster for some hand to hand combat fun!






Try a couple of these easy conversions and let us know how they worked out for you!

Have a great battle!
The Old Crow